Dean Ruger wrote:
Wax has made
repeated disparaging comments to and about faculty colleagues that violate this
standard and exhibit a disregard for her colleagues and her role at the
University, including but not limited to:
• Telling a Black
faculty colleague, Anita Allen, that it is “rational to be afraid of Black men
in elevators.”
• Stating, while
on a panel with openly gay faculty colleague Tobias Wolff, that no one should
have to live in a dorm room with a gay roommate and, separately, that same-sex
relationships are self-centered, selfish and not focused on family or
community. Wolff reported to Quinn Emanuel feeling “distressed” and that it was
“striking she would choose to hold forth that way with me sitting there.” Wolff
reported that conversations or disagreements with Wax end with “being made to
feel you are a fundamentally debased human being.”
If your point is that Professor Wax broke an academic norm because she made a disparaging statement about Black people to Professor Allen, a black person, but her statement would otherwise be A-OK had her audience been entirely absent any Black person, then you are advocating intellectual apartheid for your university. Would not an argument for wrongful harassment depend on your showing that Wax made the alleged disparaging statement to Allen precisely because Allen was a Black person? But you do not allege that—in fact, the real “problem” is not that Professor Wax had singled out Professor Allen or other Black members of the Penn community, but that Professor Wax makes these statements in public, all the time, to one-and-all. The real “problem” is that you disagree with the purportedly illiberal content of her alleged statements.
If your point is that Professor Wax broke an academic norm because she made a disparaging statement about gay people to Professor Wolff, a gay person, but her statement would otherwise be A-OK had her audience been entirely absent any gay person, then you are (again) advocating intellectual apartheid for your university. Would not an argument for wrongful harassment depend on your showing that Wax made the alleged disparaging statement during the panel discussion precisely because Wolff, her fellow panelist, was a gay person? But you do not allege that—in fact, the real “problem” is not that Professor Wax had singled out Professor Wolff or other gay members of the Penn community, but that Professor Wax makes these statements in public, all the time, to one-and-all. The real “problem” is that you disagree with the purportedly illiberal content of her alleged statements.
Your framing the issue here, i.e., Professor Wax’s speech, in terms of discriminatory conduct or harassment is simply a cover—to make the censorship of ideas in an academic setting appear palatable.
I do
not know Professor Wax. I cannot and do not speak to the remainder of your
“charge sheet.” I do know something about Powell.[1] On that basis, I state
that should Wax be disciplined, in whole or in part for assigning the Powell
interview, or for voicing her unpopular opinions in a non-discriminatory
fashion, I tremble in regard to what the consequences will be for freedom of speech,
thought, and conscience in your university, in the United States, and
elsewhere.
Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Professor Amy Wax—The Disciplinary Committee’s Decision Is Expected By September 5, 2023: What Is At Stake?,’ New Reform Club (Aug. 10, 2023, 1:51 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/professor-amy-wax-what-is-at-stake.html>;
Seth Barrett Tillman, A Response to Dean Ruger’s Letter
to Professor Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania Faculty Senate Chair, Calling
for the Imposition of a Major Sanction Against Professor Wax (Aug. 2, 2022), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4168694>;
[1] Cf. “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice,” Inscription
emblazoned above the Tomb of Sir Christopher
Wren, St. Paul’s Cathedral, <https://tinyurl.com/3aukcn9a>. It is also noteworthy that Enoch Powell was in life and
continues to be—even long after his death in 1998—a muse or focal point for much
drama, other fiction, pop music, and modern political and wider social commentary.
One recalls: Olivier Esteves, Book Review, 57(4) Journal of Contemporary History 1126 (2022) (reviewing Paul Corthorn, Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain (OUP 2019) (book)); Lindsay Aqui, Michael Kenny, and Nick Pearce, ‘“The Empire of England”: Enoch Powell, Sovereignty, and the Constitution of the Nation,’ 32(2) 20th Century British History 238 (2021); Robbie Shilliam, ‘Enoch Powell: Britain’s First Neoliberal Politician,’ 26(2) New Political Economy 239 (2021); Paul Corthorn, ‘Enoch Powell, the Commonwealth and Brexit,’ 109(6) New Commonwealth Journal 750 (2020); Colin Kidd, ‘The Provocations of Enoch Powell: Fifty years after it shunned him, the Conservative Party has embraced Powell’s Eurosceptic and Nationalist views,’ 148(5486) New Statesman 42 (2019); Shirin Hirsch, In the Shadow of Enoch Powell: Race, Locality and Resistance (Manchester University Press 2018) (book); Sally Tomlinson, ‘Enoch Powell, Empires, Immigrants and Education,’ 21(1) Race, Ethnicity and Education 1 (2018); Jonathan Coe’s Middle England (2018) (fiction); Chris Hannan’s What
Shadows (2016) (a play); Andrew Smith’s The Speech (2016) (fiction);
Sunder Katwala, ‘Powell: “best understood as part of our history”,’ British Future (June 15, 2012),
4 comments:
Black comedian Chris Rock said it was rational for people to be afraid of black people at a bank ATM machine.
Only he didn't call them black people he called them that word which I may not use.
But Chris Rock is brilliant and said things like that before western civ went totally bonkers.
Jesse Jackson apparently believed that crossing the street to avoid meeting a group of young Black men on the sidewalk (maybe in the evening, I forget) was a rational behavior that he used.
Wolff reported that conversations or disagreements with Wax end with “being made to feel you are a fundamentally debased human being.”
So what?
Are we going to fire from every University in America any and every professor who makes a cis het white male "feel he is a fundamentally debased human being"? How about doing that to Trump supporters?
In a properly operating world, Tobias Wolff would be the one facing censure, for trying to bring his feelings into what should be an intellectual discussion.
One mustn't say anything that might trouble a black or gay colleague but why is there no discussion about making a Jewish faculty member a pariah on campus? That doesn't sound very collegial to me.
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